


1541

by Plenoptic



Series: Si Guarda Al Fine [3]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Historical, M/M, Past Character Death, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:14:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22144687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plenoptic/pseuds/Plenoptic
Summary: Guido Machiavelli is burdened by questions, and dead men don't speak - not even the ones he can see.
Relationships: Flavia Auditore/Guido Machiavelli, Niccolò Machiavelli/La Volpe
Series: Si Guarda Al Fine [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/259798
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

That morning, Flavia Auditore Machiavelli threw up, hacked wretchedly over a chamber pot until she thought for sure her ribs would shatter. When the bout finally abated, she tossed the pot’s contents out her window, uncaring for the fate of the flowers her husband had been so carefully tending, and lay upon her bed with her hands pressed flat to her stomach, breathless with fear.

* * *

Guido di Niccolò dei Machiavelli could see things that others couldn’t. He’d had some strange gift of sight his entire life, but hadn’t realized it wasn’t shared by his fellow man until he was five, when he pointed out a passerby that his older brothers couldn’t see. Lodovico had given him a strange look and told him he might be touched in the head, but Bernardo sat up with him later that night and listened, in his patient way, to the stories about strange apparitions to which only Guido, it seemed, was privy.

“Do they frighten you, these things you see?” he’d asked, after several minutes’ long, pondering silence.

“No.”

Bernardo had hummed, thought for another long while, long enough that Guido—who even at five was practiced at sitting in quiet contemplation—began to fidget. Eventually, his older brother had nodded, looking sage and wise beyond his years.

“You should tell Papa. Not Mama, though. You’d upset her.”

Like Bernardo, Papa had listened—with a furrowed brow, of course, as was his habit. He had listened to his son as intently as he’d listen to a fellow Signoria member or foreign diplomat, weighing each word and giving Guido ample time to speak. He wasn’t a perfect father—Guido understood that much now, as a man grown—but he listened to each of his children like they were _people_ , and Guido didn’t think he’d ever loved his father as much as he had in that moment.

“Guido,” Niccolò had said finally, and with the slightest hint of a smile, “you’re young yet—younger than your brother was when I told him this story. Come here.”

Guido had scrambled into his father’s lap. Niccolò had put both arms around the boy, cradled him close with a wince. At the time, Guido only understood that his father had suffered some injury that left him with near-permanent pain in his shoulders. It was only much later, after Niccolò’s passing, that Guido would learn of a device called the _strappado_.

“I’m going to tell you a story,” Niccolò had begun, voice low, grey eyes gazing into the fire, “about an eagle, a fox, a lion, and a raging bull.”

* * *

It was this same curious sight that made Guido pause when he stepped into his home. As eldest son of the lesser branch of the Machiavelli—whether their grandfather had really been a bastard was a mystery left unresolved—Bernardo had inherited their late father’s estate, the small farmhouse and attached vineyards in Percussina. It was the house originally owned by his namesake, the house their father and his brothers and sisters grew up in. But Bernardo was unmarried and spent most of his time in Florence, entirely preoccupied with his law practice, and had offered the house to Guido. Guido had accepted, and his new bride had moved up the road from her own family’s small estate mere days later.

When he stepped through his door, Guido’s second sight flickered, just for a moment—but a moment was long enough for him to realize that his wife was not the only person in their home. Guido moved his cloak aside, letting his left arm hang loose behind his hip. The bracer and its attached hidden blade were a reassuring weight against his side. He stepped forward, closing the door quietly behind him, and his vision flashed, almost seared—a blurred bluish figure stepped around him. He recognized the profile—his aunt Margherita. Her voice echoed through his head as if she were speaking to him from underwater.

Guido gave his head a hard shake and when he reopened his eyes, the apparition had vanished. He looked around again, squinting. Flavia was the only one in the house—but she was not. There were two beating hearts in his own home, in addition to his own.

Suddenly her voice came down the stairs, pitched, almost tinny, and it startled him. “Guido? Are you back?”

He shook his head, marveling at her hearing, and relaxed his stance. “Yes. I’m coming up.”

He mounted the stairs in twos, suddenly desperate to see her—the sense of dread triggered by his second sight had been overpowering. Already he felt sweat cooling on his nape. He blotted his face on his cloak in the hallway before he opened the door to their bedroom.

It was cool, almost chilly—winter was sniffing around the edges of the Tuscan countryside, and Flavia had the windows thrown wide open. She lay on their bed, still in her nightgown, staring up at the ceiling with a furrow in her brow. Her hands rested upon her stomach, curiously splayed—protective, almost. Guido quirked his head, and when she didn’t address him, he stepped into the room and closed the door. After shucking his boots and cloak, he crossed their bedroom and pulled the windows closed.

“Flavia?” he said, quietly, but still she started. “Aren’t you cold?”

“No. I’m not.” She drew in a slow breath, held it, exhaled shakily. “Guido.”

Guido lowered himself onto the side of their bed and reached for her, tucked a strand of dark, unruly hair behind her ear. “Flavia,” he prompted again, “are you well?”

She mustn’t be, he thought, looking her over—she looked pale and trembly, and wouldn’t remove her gaze from the ceiling. She was usually delighted to have him home; he was used to stepping through the door and finding his arms full of his wife, her eager kisses against his mouth.

When she spoke, her voice quavered. “I’m hurting, Guido.”

“What?” He leaned over her, squinting, and pressed his hand to her forehead. She was warm, certainly. “Where? What hurts? I’ll get a doctor—”

Flavia smiled and shook her head. She took his hand from her brow and brought it instead to her mouth. “No, love. Not for a few months yet.”

“What are you—” Guido paused. Two people in the house—but not. “What are you saying?”

Flavia’s smile widened. She looked very much like her father when she smiled.

* * *

Neither Ezio nor Niccolò had had any intention, whatsoever, of their children following in their footsteps. Under their leadership, the brotherhood had prospered. It knew new lands now, and new enemies. And while the Templars’ influence would never be completely unhooked from the fair kingdoms that composed Italy, the battlefield had shifted. It unfolded now in lands of which Guido Machiavelli could only dream, and he suspected his idle fantasies didn’t come close to the reality of those strange places.

Niccolò’s determination that his children would grow up without the constant threat of bloodshed, however, had left Guido with an inheritance composed mostly of questions, half-told stories, texts that seemed to talk in circles, and letters with correspondents who could no longer be found. If his father’s books— _Il Principe_ , the _Discorsi_ —held any answers, they weren’t forthcoming. Indeed, the texts were as tight-lipped as their author when it came to the brotherhood of assassins who had worked tirelessly for decades to oust the cruelest tyrants Italy had ever known.

What frustrated Guido further was that his brothers and sister couldn’t even be bothered to care. They had no interest in their father’s secrets. Bernardo was the only one who’d listened attentively with Guido to their father’s stories; Lodovico preferred playing swords in the vineyards, and Baccina preferred her mother’s lessons in cooking. Piero had simply been too little.

“If he meant for us to know, he’d have told us,” Lodovico had nearly spat once, when Guido prompted him again to retell a muddled story they’d heard in their childhood, prying in his brother’s head for the truth about their father. “Leave it—and him—in peace.”

Bernardo tried to assuage rather than chide, but the message was the same—Niccolò hadn’t wanted them to know, so they didn’t want to know.

“You loved our father best of all of us, Guido,” Bernardo had said, not unkindly. “And sometimes I think he loved you best of all of us, as well. Why is it, then, that you of all of us can’t respect his wishes?’

Because, Guido thought to himself, fury with his brothers nearly choking him, _because_ , their father had spent his life in service of Florence, of the brotherhood. He had spent his youth running around Italy, trying to sort messes whose inventors had created for their own gain. He had nearly died at the hands of Medici torturers and still, _still_ , spent the summer after his imprisonment trying to win his way back into their good graces. And he had spent the last years of his life doing his best to educate Florence’s youth, finding proteges from the republic’s rising thinkers and lawyers and politicians and sharpening their minds on the whetstone that was his vast experience.

It was enough to drive Guido mad—to have seen his father suffer so, to suffer the _disgrace_ the Medici and their sycophants brought to his memory, and to not know _why_. All he had was a rough timeline of events, seismic happenings that had shaken all of Italy, some dim notion that his father might have been involved, and a haphazard collection of childhood stories and things whispered when his father and Ezio assumed all their children were asleep.

Even Mama didn’t know the truth—any of it. And even if she had, her mind was slipping. Marietta Corsini Machiavelli had been a dutiful wife and a kind mother, and Guido simply couldn’t bring himself to put her through the pain of discussing his father. The one time he’d asked, she’d become so angry and bitter it was as if she was another person entirely.

“How should I know?” she’d snapped, and knocked her wine glass from the table. “Niccolò guarded his mind with even more vigilance than he guarded his heart, and I was not the one granted access to the latter.”

 _That_ had been perturbing. Guido wasn’t a fool—he knew his parents weren’t madly in love. They were partners in creating a household and raising children, and they cared for one another, but never once did Guido see his mother fly to his father’s arms the way Flavia flew to his. That was the way of things. He was fortunate to have fallen in love with Flavia, and to have had a father who wished to see him take a wife he adored, not a wife who came with a fine dowry.

But if his mother was not “the one” who had the privilege of access to Niccolò Machiavelli’s heart—who was?

* * *

“A _baby_?!”

Guido flinched and held up his hands. “Baccina—not so loud!”

“Sorry, but—a _baby_? Oh, _Guido!_ ” She threw her arms around his neck, and he got a faceful of her hair. He thought he would smother just before she finally released him and held him instead at arms’ length, beaming. “ _Finally!_ I was beginning to fear we’d give Mama no grandchildren before… well, this is wonderful. How is Flavia? Is she starting to show?”

“It’s too early for that. She’s ill in the mornings, but other than that, she’s well.” Guido gently detached his sister from the front of his tunic and set her back in her seat. Baccina, unlike the rest of them, had married well. They sat in her husband’s summer palazzo, in a parlor decorated with the latest in French design. It was all a bit ostentatious for Guido’s liking, but her new status fit Baccina like a glove. It helped that she had a married a Corsini, their mother’s family, who had been more than happy to reclaim their bloodline.

“I can’t wait to tell Giancarlo,” Baccina said almost dreamily. She was so delighted, Guido thought wryly, it was as if he had come bearing news that _she_ was with child. “Have you told our brothers?”

“No. I thought you might like to know first. Flavia is telling Marcello tonight.”

“And Mama?”

“I’ll tell her as soon as I see her next.”

Baccina scowled and pointed an accusing finger. “Guido di Niccolò, you go see her _today_.”

Guido shook his head. “Baccina, I told you, it’s early. It might not take.”

“Don’t say such things. You can speak such a thing into existence.” Baccina’s brow had furrowed, and for a moment she looked and sounded so much like their father that Guido was stricken. That had been their father’s mantra, too—always cautioning them about the power of their words.

“Swords, fists, cannon, ballistae—these things are responses to what is already extant,” Niccolò had told them once, over dinner and a few glasses of wine. “Words? Words, my loves—words _invent_ what is extant. You can speak a world into existence.”

“Sorry,” Guido acquiesced, and he was. “What I really meant to ask you, Baccina, is whether you’d be willing to come stay for a while, in a few months’ time. Flavia may need help, and I fear I’ll be useless.”

“Of course I’ll come.” His sister tossed her hair and sniffed. “Flavia is my beloved sister-in-law. I’d come regardless of whether you asked. But I’ll not let my brother be useless to his wife while she carries his child. You’ll learn how to care for her, too. _And_ be present when the baby comes.”

“Alright,” he said, a bit meekly, but he knew better than to argue with her.

They passed a few minutes by discussing other things—to be more precise, Baccina discussed, and Guido listened. He also let his gaze wander around her sitting room, observing the blue specters that crisscrossed the floor. When one of them was struck to the floor, his blood spilling across the tiles, Guido jolted and blinked. His vision returned to normal.

“And he’s simply _not interested_ ,” Baccina was saying, huffing as she stirred her coffee. She took her coffee, the new world’s delicious bounty, with a heap of cream and sugar. Guido took it not at all. “Can you believe that? It’s not as if women are clamoring over one another to be wed to a struggling lawyer from a lesser branch of the Machiavelli family, especially after how they drug poor Papa’s name through the mud. And now this Roman _angel_ all but _falls_ into his lap, and begs me to speak to him on her behalf, and what does Bernardo tell me? He’s _not interested!_ Honestly! Can you believe it, Guido? Guido?”

“Because he likes men, Baccina, don’t be stupid,” Guido said, off-handedly—he was still staring at the spot where the apparition had died in a gout of blood. Belatedly, he heard his own words and looked up at his sister. Baccina stared at him, mouth agape. “Well. He does.”

“He—what—I don’t—”

“Oh, come on, sis. You’re not so dense, even if you pretend to be.” He frowned, glancing back at the spot. “Has anyone died here, to your knowledge?”

Baccina’s lower lip trembled. Christ, Guido thought, here it comes—but she didn’t cry. Instead she set down her teacup and folded her hands in her lap.

“ _I_ know that,” she said, sullenly. “But how did _you_ know that?”

“About Bernardo? How else?—found him kissing a man. Wait—how do _you_ know?”

Baccina groaned and put her head in her hands. “Please tell me you jest. You know about Ottavio?”

“Ottavio?” Guido’s brow creased. “Ottavio _Buonaccorsi?_ Uncle Biagio’s son?”

“Yes!” Baccina threw her hands in the air. “God in Heaven, if you knew, what am I keeping up this farce for?”

“Farce?—Baccina, what are you—”

“When Bernardo told me about Ottavio, he made me _swear_ not to tell, and asked me to tell others that he was receiving suitors, so I’ve been _making up_ all these beautiful women and claiming they’re swooning into our brother’s lap and he’s just too foolish to—”

“He told you?” Guido said, incredulous. “He told me no one knew!”

“He told _me_ no one knew!”

They stared at one another, equally indignant—and then a smile spread across Baccina’s face. Guido couldn’t help but return it, and then they dissolved into peals of laughter.

“So stupid,” Baccina gasped, wiping at her eyes. “Keeping the same secret from one another. Why didn’t Bernardo just tell us the other knew?”

“I don’t know.” Guido was clutching his side, wheezing. “He must have just been scared. Hell, were I in his position, I’d have been tight-lipped t—” He froze. Because suddenly, he knew—the _why_ of it all, the thread that stitched together Italy’s broken past and his father’s quiet, haunted silence about his days as an assassin. The thing Niccolò could have never, ever told his children. The one who had beaten his mother to his father’s heart.

“Guido?” Baccina reached for him, touched his knee. “Are you alright?”

He nodded and got to his feet. Because he knew his abruptness worried her, he took her hands in his and kissed the top of her head. “Yes. I’ve just figured something out. I have to go.”

“Go?” She got up and followed him to the door. “Go where? What are you going to do?”

Guido paused, halfway into his muddied boots. He lifted his head and quirked a grin. “I have to go fox-hunting.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the Machiavelli siblings so much I physically can't contain it

Dinner on Sunday nights was an unspoken commandment in the Machiavelli household. So it had been in Niccolò’s youth, and probably in his father’s. Niccolò had perhaps enforced it only as a matter of ritual, and because he liked having all of his children with him around the table. Guido only had fond memories from his childhood around that table—all of them talking, laughing, squabbling, telling stories, poking fun. Even in her old age, though, Marietta enforced Sunday dinners as a matter of religious sanctity. God was resting and so were they, together. _Together_ was growing increasingly harder to come by as they all grew older.

They did, by custom, leave two empty seats at the table, for their father and for Primerana. It made for nine seats in total around their ancient dinner table, and they ate with no small amount of elbow-bumping and irritated claims over space. Perhaps their bickering exhausted her, for over the last few months, Marietta had taken to retiring immediately after supper, leaving her children to clear the dishes and table and then sit and entertain one another. And, because his mother was no longer there to glower at him for discussing such matters on the Sabbath, Bernardo had taken to whipping out the abacus and accounting books the second he heard her door close.

“No,” Ludovico groaned, when he saw the hated device emerging from his brother’s bag. He began to pour himself another glass of wine, his fourth of the night. “No, _no_ , Jesus, Bernardo, can’t you leave it off _one_ week? Just _one_? Just _once_ can we just drink and enjoy one another’s company?”

He looked to Guido for support and snorted his disgust; Guido already had a quill prepared. He arched an eyebrow at his older brother.

“What? The accounts run away with us if we don’t manage them.”

“Piero,” Bernardo said sharply, and their youngest brother winced, one foot hovering over the doorway that led outside. “You’re helping this time.”

Piero skulked back to the table and sat down at Baccina’s side. She patted his shoulder.

Totto stuck his head out from the kitchen and scowled at them all. “Excuse me, why am I the only one doing the washing?”

“Because of all of us, you’re the most womanly,” Ludovico snickered. Both Totto and Baccina looked at him in outrage. “What? It’s true.”

“Lodo.” Bernardo extended a quill, his expression flat. “The accounts or the washing. Or, if you’d prefer, you can go read Mama her scriptures.”

A bit of the color left Ludovico’s face. He accepted the quill and heaved a resigned sigh when Bernardo pushed him the heavy account book.

“Wait, then can I do the washing instead?” Piero asked, perking up.

“No. You need to learn the accounts.”

“What! Why does Lodo get a choice but not me?”

“Because I’ve already suffered his grueling tutelage,” Ludovico grumbled, flipping to the most recent entries in the book. He stared down at the pages. “What in the shit is this?”

Baccina giggled at him. “It’s double-entry bookkeeping, obviously.”

“What in the shit does that mean? Why are we doing the accounts different?”

“Because this is how the Medici do them, and the Medici manage, at last count, thirty percent of our estate.”

“What was wrong with the old way? How does _Baccina_ know how to do this?”

“Because _I’m_ smart, Lodo.”

“What the hell are you inferring?”

“You mean implying.”

“Shut up!”

Guido was no longer listening to his siblings’ squabbling—he was bent over the Percussina account book with his brow furrowed, trying to make sense of a confusing divergence from the investment plan they’d laid out a few weeks before.

“Bernardo,” he said, raising his voice above Ludovico’s braying, “what is this?—this separate line, here. You’ve wicked off a bit of all of our portions.”

Bernardo pulled the book closer and skimmed the lines in question. “Oh. Well, that’s for your baby, obviously.”

Ludovico and Baccina stopped arguing at once; Lodo turned to his younger brother with wide eyes. Piero’s mouth dropped open. Guido rotated to look at his sister, his expression thunderous, and she clapped her hands over her mouth.

“ _Sorry_ ,” she squeaked, “was it a secret?”

Totto stuck his head in again, a dishtowel dangling off his shoulder. “Was what a secret? Would someone come help me with these, please?”

Bernardo looked around at his siblings before frowning at Guido. “You didn’t tell them?”

Guido was still fixed on Baccina. “You did?”

“You didn’t want me to?”

“I told you I was telling them later!”

“You told me you’d tell _Mama_ later—”

Totto looked around, frowning. “Tell Mama _what_?”

Bernardo sighed and closed the main account book with a heavy thud. They all looked round at him. “Baccina told me. I assumed everyone else would know by now. I’m sorry, Guido.”

Guido harrumphed and sat back in his seat. Totto finally came in and occupied one of the empty chairs. With all of his siblings’ eyes on him, Guido shifted and cleared his throat.

“Fine,” he sighed, resigned. “Flavia’s pregnant.”

Baccina grinned again, like she was hearing the news for the first time, while Totto and Piero both exploded into expressions of jubilation. Lodo blinked several times before sitting back in his seat and scratching his head, looking perplexed (one of his favorite pasttimes was taking jabs at his younger brother’s virility, and Guido had to admit that proving him so very wrong was more than a little satisfying). Bernardo smiled his wan smile and offered Guido a shrug.

“Had to come out at some point.”

“She’s only two months along,” Guido said. “Anything could go wrong still. So don’t—”

“It’ll be _fine_ ,” Totto said, rapping his knuckles on the wooden table. Guido scowled at him, but Totto only pointed downward with a serious expression. Their father was always listening. “Flavia will deliver the healthiest baby to ever live, will recover to her usual vigor in no time, and our dear brother will be the first among us to become a father.”

Ludovico grunted, his face still betraying his disbelief, and got to his feet. “Well. Think we’ll need another bottle or two of wine.”

“We don’t,” Guido argued, looking pained.

“How else are we going to celebrate?”

“Celebrate? There’s nothing to—oh, for God’s sake.”

Bernardo frowned after Ludovico and Totto as they trooped downstairs to the wine cellar. “Hey—does this mean we’re not going over the accounts?”

* * *

They did, in fact, return to the accounts, some hours later, when there was no longer a sober head in the entire house. Piero and Baccina had fallen asleep leaning against one another on a couch; Guido covered them with a blanket before joining his other brothers outside. Seated with their backs against their father’s old house, they passed a wine bottle around and watched the stars turn their lazy circle overhead.

“The new accounts are for the baby,” Bernardo said without preamble, stifling a massive yawn.

“But you’ve diverted the funds from all of us.”

“Those were Father’s wishes.”

Guido leaned forward and squinted at his brother. “What?”

“Hold on,” Ludovico grunted, struggling and failing to sit up as well. “Why’s my share going to Guido’s spawn?—oh, come _on_ ,” he added with a loud groan, for no sooner had he asked the question than did Bernardo procure a roll of parchment from his coat and unfurl it for them. “Please don’t tell me that’s—”

“It’s Father’s will.”

“God damn it. Why do you carry that thing around?”

“It is stipulated herein,” Bernardo said, ignoring him and assuming what they all fondly referred to as his most ‘lawyerly tone,’ “that the Machiavelli estates, finances, and all associated assets, including but not limited to livestock, winery products, books—”

“We _get it_ , Bernardo—”

“—Shut up—and any other goods, material or otherwise, shall be divided equitably between _Messers_ Bernardo, Ludovico, Guido—”

“We know our _names_ —”

“—Totto, and Piero di Niccolò Machiavelli, _Messer_ Giovanni Vernacci, and between madams Primerana di Niccolò Machiavelli, now stricken, Bartolomea ‘Baccina’ di Machiavelli Corsini, Marietta di Corsini Machiavelli, and furthermore, equitably between all of their progeny.”

Ludovico scrubbed a hand over his face. “So, between all—eight of us? Plus Guido’s babe—why, we must be set to inherit nearly a whole ducat apiece.”

Bernardo rolled up the will and put it back in his coat. “It’s true we didn’t inherit much of an estate, and we’ve used a fair bit of it to look after Mother. But it’s growing. Baccina and I have been careful with the investments. And Giovanni waived his.”

Guido looked at him in surprise. “He did? You let him?”

Bernardo shrugged. “It was his right. He told me that our father had done enough for him, that the estate belonged to us. I wasn’t going to argue. We need every ducat.”

“Will he be alright?”

“He’ll be fine. He’s a member of the Signoria and an advisor to the Medici.”

“So was our father,” Ludovico said, slipping fast into drunken stupor and underestimating the weight of his words. They all fell quiet. Totto sighed, slapped his thighs, and got up, excusing himself to take a piss. Ludovico began snoring a few moments later.

“I’m glad you’re having a baby, Guido,” Bernardo said at length. “Someone should. I don’t want our line to end with us.”

“The others may yet have children. You know Baccina and Giancarlo are trying.” Guido knocked a boot fondly against their sleeping brother’s. “Lodo will hump a baby into some poor girl at some point, I’m sure. And there’s still Totto and Piero.” He glanced at Bernardo. “And you.”

Bernardo chuckled. “No. Not me.”

“You don’t yet know what tomorrow may bring.”

“No, but I know my heart.”

Guido let the moment lapse into silence, chewing on the inside of his cheek, weighing his next question carefully. “Did Father know?”

“About my proclivities? Yes. I told him.”

“Was he…?”

Bernardo smiled. “You knew him better than anyone, Guido. When was he ever one to cast stones? No, he only told me to tread carefully and stay far from ranting clerics.” Bernardo paused. “And he… told me something else.”

Guido sighed, dropping his head back against the wall. “He told you about la Volpe.”

Bernardo visibly jumped. “You—how did you—?”

With a quirk of his mouth that wasn’t quite a smile, Guido tapped the side of his head. “The sight. I see his ghost all the time, flitting in and out of the house and the Palazzo della Signoria. I just didn’t realize it was him. I thought nothing of it until recently, when I was talking with Baccina. And then it just clicked.”

“But surely you couldn’t confirm…?”

“I searched the study. There are letters, encrypted.”

“How did you know the cipher?”

“Because he taught me, not so long before he died. He taught me every cipher he’d ever known or developed. I just worked through them one by one until the letter made sense.”

Bernardo shook his head slowly, his face dawning wonder. “He could have withheld that one—burned the letters. Hidden them somehow. He must have known you’d read anything he left behind. He…”

“Wanted me to know.” Guido looked down at his boots. His throat felt curiously tight. “Yes. I think so, too.”

Bernardo was quiet for a long time. When he spoke again, his voice was very quiet. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” Guido drew in a breath and released it in a slow sigh. “Father wanted, above everything else, for men to know their own hearts. I suppose we’re not exempt from that entreaty. And there was so much he couldn’t tell us. Maybe—well. Maybe he just didn’t want to hide in death as he had in life.”

Bernardo didn’t speak again. He drew his knees to his chest and rested his forehead upon them. Guido suspected his brother was crying and looked away, granting him privacy.

He had searched, long and hard, and come up with little more about la Volpe than he’d known before. The man had been a master thief, the stuff of Florentine legend, and a loyal—albeit unpredictable—member of the brotherhood. Most of what Guido learned he’d written off as hearsay, slander, and myth—he did not, for instance, believe that Volpe had at some point tried to have Niccolò assassinated, that he had once stolen a hair pin right off the regal head of Caterina Sforza, or that the thief was an immortal trickster demon sent to Florence to make its citizens pay for their greed and usury.

What little he did know, he gleaned from his father’s letters, though it still wasn’t much. He had always believed, in the guilty privacy of his own head, that Bernardo’s sexual proclivities were down to the desires of the flesh, that someday his brother would get it out of his system, so to speak, and occupy himself with women. Reading his father’s letters, though, Guido felt his heart turn over. He understood, now, what a fool he’d been, to think he could know another man’s heart more intimately than the man himself—and to think himself righteous in thinking so poorly of his own brother’s. He had no measure for his shame in that regard.

“Volpe was there,” Guido said, breaking the heavy silence. “The day you were born.”

Bernardo lifted his head, slowly, staring at his younger brother with incredulity.

Guido beckoned to him and got to his feet. They left Ludovico snoozing on the step and walked up the short hill to the olive grove behind the house. Guido unlocked their father’s study with the key around his neck and led his brother inside. They lit the candles, which were squat and mostly melted, their wicks perilously short, and Guido retrieved the box of letters he’d hidden in the secret panel in the desk. He sifted through them while Bernardo, who hadn’t been in the study in years, gazed at their father’s bookshelves.

“Here.” Guido found the letter he’d been looking for and offered it to his brother. “It’s about you. I wasn’t sure whether to give it to you, but—it’s not my right to withhold it.”

Bernardo accepted the letter with trembling hands and unfolded it. His shoulders tightened, and Guido knew well the ache that must have gripped his heart upon seeing their father’s handwriting again. Bernardo lowered himself into a chair to read. Guido took a seat at the desk and ordered its haphazard stacks of books absentmindedly.

La Volpe (which was not his given name, though Guido had assumed that) and his father, he knew now, had been lovers—had been since Niccolò was a young man, and had been at least until Guido was born. He wasn’t sure whether the circumstances of his birth, commonplace though they were, had caused an end to their relationship; he only knew that the last letter was dated two months after his birthday. Perhaps there were more, letters that had been lost or hidden, or that were in Volpe’s possession, or perhaps the thief had died, or something had come between them. Guido had no way of knowing. All he knew was that there was no singular moment of his father’s time as an assassin that hadn’t involved la Volpe, that hadn’t put their love—it seemed to Guido, at least—in jeopardy. Guido had tried to imagine hiding Flavia, his love for her, what they had built together, from the world—from his friends, his family, from passerby on the street. He couldn’t fathom it. He didn’t want to.

It wasn’t, as Guido had originally suspected, that Niccolò had been trying to hide the truth about the brotherhood from his children. No—there was simply no way to speak of the brotherhood without speaking of Volpe, and at some point, speaking of Volpe had become something Niccolò wouldn’t, or couldn’t, do.

“He didn’t send them.”

Guido looked up. Bernardo wasn’t crying, but his eyes looked misty, and his jaw was clenched tight. The letter hung loose in his hands. Sucking in a deep breath, the eldest of the Machiavelli children lifted his head.

“He didn’t send them,” Bernardo repeated. “To… Gilberto. Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he was only writing them for himself, or for posterity, as a journal of some sort.” The letters all started and ended the same way— _Gilberto, …With love, your tesoro_. Nearly every other piece of correspondence he’d seen his father pen had ended _Farewell. Niccolò Machiavelli_. Even letters to Marietta and to Biagio, his closest confidantes, ended the same as letters to colleagues and co-conspirators. And that endearment, _tesoro_ , your treasure, at the end—Guido couldn’t imagine those words coming from his father’s mouth. And yet, in some strange way, he could—he felt that he was trying to superimpose two mirrored images, one of the father he knew, the other of this man the letters contained. The images were the same, but not. No amount of rotation and adjustment could make them fit.

“You think he never intended for Volpe to read them?”

“Perhaps. Or maybe these are drafts, or ones he forgot to send…perhaps letters they collected late in life. So they would remember.”

Bernardo sniffled and muffled it in his palm quickly. He looked down again at the letter. “You were right. The day I was born—Volpe wasn’t just _there_. He held me.”

“Not just you—Ludovico and me, as well.”

Bernardo shook his head. “I don’t remember him. I don’t think I would even recognize his face. Why? Did he not want to know us?”

“If he didn’t, why be there for our births? No—I think it’s more likely Mama wouldn’t let him.”

Bernardo blew out a sigh. “Mama. God, I completely forgot. You think she knew?”

“She did.” Guido procured another letter. “When Primerana was a baby, Mama found out.”

“She didn’t put a stop to it?”

“Apparently not. Again, all I know is what’s in the letters.”

“Who else knew, do you think?”

“Ezio, almost certainly.” Guido sat back in the chair and drummed his fingertips on the desk. “Biagio. Aunt Margherita too, I think.”

Bernardo hesitated—Guido knew exactly the question that would come out of his mouth. “Do you think I am the way I am because…?”

Guido had also planned out his response. “Because our father loved a man? Did he take out his own heart and put it in your chest? Are desires of the heart heritable? I think not. You are who you are, Bernardo. You shouldn’t seek excuses—nor should you apologize.”

Bernardo smiled, and it was the most genuine Guido had seen on his face in a long time. “Then I won’t.” He looked back down at the letter in his hands, turned it over carefully. “I wonder who else we could ask about la Volpe, and Father—who would even be willing to tell us. Maybe—” He froze. His head snapped up, and he fixed his gaze on his younger brother. “Have you tried the sight?”

“What?”

“Your sight. Don’t you remember the story—about Leonardo, when he was taken by those cultists?”

Guido cast his mind around. He nodded slowly. “He hid a map on his paintings. A map only Ezio could see.”

“Have you looked at the letters?”

“There are scores of them, Bernardo—hundreds, perhaps.”

“Try,” Bernardo entreated, and handed him the letter.

Guido sighed and took it. “I can’t exactly make it happen at will.”

“Just _try_.”

With no confidence whatsoever that he would see anything but his father’s handwriting, Guido opened the letter and squinted at it. He tried letting his mind wander, then go clear, then tried letting his eyes unfocus, then focus hard, but the letter revealed nothing new. “I don’t see anything,” he said, a little despairingly, after five minutes of staring.

Bernardo sighed and sat back in his chair. “Damn. Well, it was worth—”

Guido suddenly leapt to his feet. “Wait. _Wait_. I’m in the wrong place.”

His brother frowned at him. “What?”

“I only ever see Aunt Margherita in the house in Firenze. La Volpe, too—there, and at the Signoria offices. I can’t see anything if I’m not in a place that’s significant, somehow.”

Bernardo got to his feet as well, his eyes bright, excited. “Then, if we took the letters into the city, and you looked at them there—”

“If I’m going to see anything, it’ll be in Firenze. It would _have_ to be there.”

“Then let’s go.”

“Now?”

“Now!”

“It’s the middle of the night!” Guido laughed, put a hand to his head. “And we’ve been drinking.”

“All the better—we’re at our most bold, and doesn’t Fortuna favor the bold?” Bernardo reached for him, gripped him around the arms. “Come _on_ , Guido. I want to know. Don’t you?”

“Yes,” Guido said, quietly. “Yes, God, I want to know.”

“Then for Christ’s sake, let’s _find out_.”

Guido stared at him a moment more—and then a grin, so very like his late father’s, spread across his face. “God damn it.” He nodded and clapped his elder brother on the shoulder. “Alright, damn it. Let’s go.”


	3. Interlude: 1527

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The following letter was originally translated by Allan Gilbert, and provided in full in his text "Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others, Volume 2."

_2 April, 1527 – Imola_

My dearest son Guido,

I have received your letter, which has been a great pleasure to me, especially since you write that you are completely cured, because I could not have better news. For if God grants life to you and to me, I believe I can make you a man of standing, if you wish to play your part as you should, because, beside the great friendships I have, I have made a new friendship with the Cardinal Cibo (it is so great that I myself wonder at it), which will be of service to you. But it is necessary for you to learn and, since you no longer have the excuse of sickness, to work hard to learn letters and music, since you see how much I am aided by the little skill I have. So, my son, if you wish to give pleasure to me and bring prosperity and honor to yourself, do well and learn, because if you help yourself, everybody will help you.

The little mule, though he is crazy, needs to be treated quite differently from other crazy creatures, because the other crazy ones are tied up, and I want you to untie him. Give him to Vangelo and tell him to lead him onto Monte Pugliano and then take off his bridle and halter and let him go where he will to get his living and rid himself of his madness. The territory is large, the animal is small; he can’t do any harm. And so without taking any trouble about it, we can see what he wants to do, and you will be in time, whenever he gets his wits back, to catch him again. With the horses do what [your brother] Lodovico has told you to do; he, I thank God, has got well, and he has sold out. And I know that he has prospered, since he has sent money, but I wonder and feel bad because he has not written.

Greet [your mother] Marietta and tell her that I have been on the point of leaving here every day, and still I remain; and I never had so much desire to be in Florence as now; but I can do nothing else. Merely say to her that for anything I hear she can be sure that I shall be there before there is any trouble. Kiss Baccina, Piero, and [your brother] Totto, if he is there, and I would have been glad to know whether his eyes are cured. Be happy and spend as little as you can. And remind [your brother] Bernardo that he should try to do well; to whom within fifteen days I have written two letters and have had no reply. Christ watch over you all.

Niccolò Machiavelli, in Imola.


	4. Chapter 3

“See anything?”

Guido squinted at the letter in his hands, turning it over to look at the back. A bluish specter passed to his left, not anyone he recognized, and disappeared when it met the door of the Palazzo Vecchio. But the letter yielded nothing. At length he sighed and took a seat on the bench behind him.

“No. Nothing.”

Beside him, Flavia sighed and dropped her head against his shoulder. It was his fourth sojourn into the city since his drunken adventure with Bernardo, which had also yielded absolutely no new information. Flavia had been coming with him—partially to get out of the maddening silence of their little house, but also, Guido suspected, because she was worried about him.

She did not suggest that there was nothing more in the letter to see, and Guido loved her beyond measure for that, for letting him hold onto the naïve, reckless hope that his father still had something more to say to him. He folded the letter with all the care in the world and tucked it into his coat before putting his arm around her waist, letting her nestle into his side.

“How do you feel?”

“Better than this morning.” Flavia put a hand on her belly, frowning down at it. “If it weren’t for all the vomiting, I wouldn’t even know there’s a baby in there.”

Guido would know—when he rested his hand against her stomach, he could feel the softest of swellings, a little secret thing, but then he had always been an exceptionally good student of his beloved’s body. He smiled a little as he pressed his mouth to her hair, sun-warm and dark.

“You’ll know soon, and then you’ll miss your blissful ignorance.”

“Don’t remind me,” she groaned. “I’m going to make you carry me on your back even down the stairs.”

“Happily.”

The doors of the Palazzo Vecchio swung open, and Guido got to his feet when he recognized the golden crown of curls flashing in the sunlight. Giovanni Vernacci caught sight of him and grinned, and they met halfway to throw their arms around one another.

“There’s my little cousin,” Giovanni laughed, stepping back and ruffling Guido’s hair between his hands, ignoring the younger man’s protests. “How dare you just now come to see me!”

“I’ve been busy,” Guido said, and had the decency to at least sound contrite. The truth of the matter was that Giovanni was an impossible man to pin down—he had inherited none of the Machiavelli looks from his mother, Niccolò’s eldest sister, but he had his uncle’s wanderlust and intractable distaste for staying put for too long. For Giovanni, “too long” was anything more than a few days at a time.

“This Signoria appointment will kill me,” Giovanni lamented, even as he turned to Flavia and took her into his arms, hugging her tight. “All day these old men talk and talk and _talk_ , and they expect me to actually listen! It was the worst day of my life when my name came up in the lot.”

At least he was eligible for the lottery that assigned Signoria seats, Guido thought a little scathingly, and not for the first time he felt a flicker of resentment for his father and for the heaviness of the debts he’d left behind. But he marshaled a smile and a shrug and his condolences.

They took lunch at one of Giovanni’s favorite haunts, a tiny restaurant that was really no more than a kitchen and a table outside. Vincenzo, the cook, was absolutely ancient; he had been there when Niccolò served as chancellor, and he recognized Guido the moment they set eyes upon one another and brought out a good bottle of wine.

“How is your mother, Madonna Marietta?” Vincenzo asked, as he brought out baskets loaded with bread and small bowls full of glistening olive oil. “Your youngest brother was a babe in arms the last time she came round.”

Marietta, Guido knew, had been to see Vincenzo just last month, but the old man exaggerated everything—it was one of the reasons he and Niccolò had gotten along. “She’s well.”

“Well enough to make it to church each week?”

Guido smiled. “Yes. And if she isn’t, you know she’ll have us carry her before she is absent.”

“She’s a good woman, your mother,” Vincenzo said seriously, and not for the first time, Guido wondered if the old man had a flame lit for Niccolò’s widow. That would be alright by him—God knew Marietta could use a companion—but it was the thought of Ludovico finding out that made him smile and let the comment slip by.

Vincenzo left them to prepare lunch, and Giovanni was quick to fill the silence, chattering away about his last trip to the Levant, and all the wonders he’d seen there. He was a merchant by trade, and quite good at it, given his amicable and gregarious manner; it really had been bad luck that his name had been drawn for the Signoria while he was home visiting, and now he found himself stuck in his home city for two months serving his term. Guido loved his cousin, but he genuinely couldn’t think of anyone worse suited for the job.

“They’re talking about war with Venezia. Again,” Giovanni said, a touch scathingly, as he lathered a bit of bread in the olive oil. “They might even mean it this time.”

“Oh? What’s the inciting insult this time?”

Guido had scarcely touched his wine, but Giovanni was already refilling it for him as he went on. “Someone stole something from the doge’s palace. And by ‘stole something,’ I mean emptied an entire treasure room. Didn’t leave so much as a ducat behind. So of course the doge suspects Florentine involvement.”

Guido arched a brow. “That’s an impressive heist. Does the doge think that the Signoria keeps master thieves on retainer?”

It was a jest, but Giovanni frowned and set down the wine bottle. “I made the same joke. But they have before, did you know?”

Guido blinked. “What?”

“I’ve been rustling through the archives—figured I might as well, since I’ve got two months in that damned office and nothing better to do with my time.”

“You might try governance, cous,” Guido snorted, but Giovanni only rolled his eyes.

“I found this interesting line of credit the office of the chancellor extended to an unnamed guild here in the city. I say interesting because the people to whom the credit applied officially never existed—at the very least, they did not exist in any citizen register I’ve found.” Giovanni paused. “This guild was a little infamous, it turns out. I’ve found mentions of them all over the place, mostly hearsay, but I have it from a reliable source that they were professional thieves.”

“Reliable source?” Guido said. “Who?”

Giovanni shrugged. “ _Signor_ Buonaccorsi.”

Guido gave him an incredulous look. “Why were you bothering Uncle Biagio with this? For Chrissakes, Giovanni, the man’s so old he can barely get around his garden, and you’re picking his brains about politics?”

Giovanni lifted his hands, placating. Vincenzo came out with lunch, small roasted pheasants stuffed with vegetables and herbs, and Giovanni waited until the old man departed again before going on in lower tones. “I know, I know. But that line of credit was created…well, it was created in ’98.”

Guido stiffened, and Flavia’s hand gripped his beneath the table. “Did you invite us out today because you think I know something about this?”

“I invited you out because I wanted to see you, Guido,” Giovanni replied, a little coolly. “Look. You know I loved Uncle Niccolò. That man was nothing but good to me from the day I was born. Better to me than my own father. All I want is to understand why he’d have used the city’s money to hire a band of thieves.”

Guido took a few deep breaths to steady the rising anger in his chest. Flavia’s fingers around his grounded him a little. “What did Biagio say?”

“Claimed ignorance of the whole affair.”

“Claimed?”

Giovanni waved a hand, irritated. “The man’s old, but he’s wily. He’s probably lying—though I have no idea what he’s trying to protect. _Zio_ Colo’s reputation, maybe. Buonaccorsi always was loyal.”

Guido’s thoughts raced. Giovanni was wrong—there was nothing left of Niccolò Machiavelli’s reputation left to protect. The Medici had seen to that in 1512. There was no scandal that could break now that would do any lasting harm—and in any case, Florentine memory was short. The citizenry had enough intrigue and corruption to handle in its current politicians, never mind those of thirty years ago.

Which meant that the only other party worth protecting would be the guild of thieves themselves—which meant there must be someone left of them.

Guido got to his feet more abruptly than he’d intended, and Giovanni and Flavia both started. “I have to go.”

“Go?” Giovanni blinked up at him. “You haven’t even touched your lunch.”

“I know, I—”

But Flavia put a hand on his arm, and he stopped, looking down at her. The press of her mouth was decidedly unhappy, her brows furrowed, and she gave the slightest shake of her head. Slowly, Guido lowered himself back into his chair.

“It can wait, I suppose,” he said, and Giovanni clapped him on the shoulder before urging him to eat.

They took their leave of his cousin an hour later, but Flavia did not speak until they were nearly on the Ponte Vecchio. She caught Guido’s arm and he halted, turning to her with a sigh.

“Alright. What is it?”

“How long is this going to go on, Guido?” she asked, her voice very quiet.

“How long is what going to go on?”

“This—all this rushing around, asking questions. Being so suspicious.” She looked up at him, her lovely eyes searching his. “Chasing ghosts.”

His chest tightened, and he stared down at her in disbelief. “You told me you wanted to know just as badly as I do who our fathers were.”

“And I do—I did. But…” She paused, struggling, and shook her head. “Guido, we _know_ who our fathers were. They were good men who sometimes had to do terrible things. They loved us. They built good lives for us. And they didn’t _want_ us chasing their memories like this.”

“I told you,” Guido said, his voice shaking. “I told you that Father left letters to Volpe, and he taught me the encryptions—”

“All of them?” she demanded, and Guido drew up short. “You can read every single letter you’ve found?”

“No,” he admitted, “but I—”

Flavia sighed and stepped close to him, took his face in her hands. “They’re _love letters_ , Guido. What’s the date on the one you’re hiding in your pocket?”

Guido swallowed. “1494.”

“Niccolò wasn’t even thirty, right?—he wasn’t the chancellor, or an ambassador. He hadn’t even met your mother. He and my father had only known one another a few years that that point. You really think that he was hiding secrets in letters to his paramour for his future children to find?”

Guido wrenched himself free of her hands. His pulse thudded so hard against his throat that it hurt. “I don’t understand. You know how much this means to me.”

“I know,” she said, a little urgently now, and caught his hands in hers before he could pull away. “But I also know it broke your heart to lose him, Guido. I don’t blame you for—for trying to hold onto whatever might be left.”

Guido’s heart surged, and he pulled his hands from hers. “Go home without me.”

“Guido— _tesoro_ , please—”

That endearment stung hot across his skin, like a whip, or a brand, and he drew up his hood and stepped around her, shaking off the hand she put on his shoulder. He stalked off back across the bridge that connected the two halves of Florence, leaving his wife staring after him, but he couldn’t bring himself to so much as look back at her. He was shaking, anger pulsing hot in his veins, and he leaned into it, let it distract him from the sick, knotty grief twisting up his stomach.

He had been the only one of them who hadn’t attended their father’s funeral. He hadn’t been able to face it. While his family enshrined Niccolò’s body alongside his father’s in the mausoleum, Guido had hidden himself in the study, surrounded himself with its thoughtful quiet, build a barricade around his heart with all the books his father left behind.

He had spent that afternoon thinking about the mule—the little one he’d tried to break in when he was a boy. It had been a wild thing, extremely mean, and bit whenever he tried to bridle it, and he had written to his father in frustration for advice. He had rather expected to receive step by step instructions on taming the little beast, because Niccolò always seemed to have very specific answers for this sort of thing. But his father had only written back and told him to let the thing run—let it out to pasture, he’d written, and Guido had almost been able to hear his father laughing behind the words. It was just a little thing, after all, and the pasture was huge—what harm could it do? Let a wild thing be wild.

Say hello to your mother for me. Kiss the baby for me. I’ll be home soon.

It had also seemed a little sad, that letter. A little…longing, somehow. There was an ache in the words that Guido felt afraid to touch. But he’d been just a child then, not perceptive enough to ask the questions that needed asking, and two short months after he’d written that letter, Guido’s father was gone.

Guido strode into the city proper with nothing resembling a destination in mind—he only knew that the last place on earth he wanted to be was at home. He shouldn’t have left Flavia alone so close to dusk, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn around. He paid no heed to the people he passed on the street, nor they to him, and why should they?—he was just another Florentine enjoying the late afternoon.

If he could ask now, now that it was far too late, he’d ask his father how he’d come to know so much about wild animals.

As he made tracks past the Palazzo Vecchio, someone bumped Guido’s shoulder—not hard enough to even change his path, just enough to be felt. He turned around to excuse himself, but no one near him had stopped—indeed, no one was even close enough to have been the one to bump him. He put a hand out to steady himself, placed it against the cool stone of the Palazzo Vecchio, and it was at that moment that his second sight activated, and the city around him lit up. Guido froze, breathless, staring around at a Florence that was completely transformed—his eyes tracked between passing faces, flitted from bench to hay bale, focused on the notices and wanted posters tacked onto the public boards. It was like the city was calling to him, calling like it had never called before—and glowing luminous on the ground before him were footprints.

Guido put a hand inside his coat, felt around the interior pocket. The letter was gone.

His feet moved without his permission, and he let them carry him along, watched entranced as he placed his own feet over the glowing footprints. He weaved his way through the crowd, and the footprints took every twist and turn the city offered. In a secluded alley they suddenly tracked straight up a building’s wall, and Guido paused to ready himself before leaping into a low trellis. He struggled for a moment before hauling himself up. Ezio had taught him a little about how to navigate the city as an assassin, but it had been mostly in play—Guido had never been formally trained. He didn’t even know how to use the hidden blade he kept strapped to his wrist beneath his coat.

All the same, he managed to scale the side of the building—thankful, for once, for his slender build, because were he Ludovico’s size it would have been hell—and dragged himself panting onto the roof. There the footprints faded abruptly, and as he stood there, gasping for breath, his second sight began to fade, and Florence turned clear and usual and unassuming before him again. He turned, taking in his surroundings, as the wind whipped at his hair and coat, blew his hood back from his face. The Palazzo Vecchio was just a block away; he’d been led around in circles before the footprints took him up the roof.

Someone took a step behind him. Guido spun on his heel, but a hand caught his wrist, and with a deft twist, his attacker’s fingers undid the faulty clasp on his bracer, and the hidden blade tumbled to the rooftop. Guido dove for it, but a foot kicked it up into the stranger’s hand, and Guido hit the rooftop with a thud that rattled his teeth.

He rolled onto his back and scrambled backwards, his breath whistling in his lungs, and lifted his head. The man who’d disarmed him was not looking at him, nor was he studying the bracer—he was looking down at the letter unfolded in his hand. And he was smiling.

“Give it back,” Guido said, before he could stop himself, and the thief glanced up at him. A brown cowl mostly obscured his features, but he looked older, fifty maybe, and the whipping wind pulled a few dark curls loose from his hood. His clothes were a muddled mess of oranges and browns, so ostentatious that Guido couldn’t believe he’d missed the man in the sparse crowd.

“Why?” the thief asked, and his grin widened. “It belongs to me.”

The anger was pulsing in his veins again, overriding his fear, his helplessness, and Guido got to his feet, his breath rough and quick in his chest. “It’s my father’s. Give it _back_.”

The thief raised a brow, and to Guido’s utmost surprise, tossed him the bracer. Guido caught it and fumbled to strap it to his forearm again, and only then did it occur to him to wonder how the man had known which clasp was broken.

“The letter,” Guido said, wishing his voice wouldn’t shake, and tried to sound more confident than he felt. He took a step forward and extended a hand, palm up, but his fingers trembled. “Give it back to me.”

The older man frowned and looked down at the letter. “This is addressed to _il mio carissimo Gilberto_. Is that you?”

“No, I—” Guido’s breath caught. He dropped his hand, staring at the thief in open-mouthed wonder. “You can—you can read it?”

“Of course I can read it. It’s my encryption, after all.” The thief smiled, a wan thing that made him look very tired, and shook his head. “I thought you were clever, boy.”

Guido’s mouth felt extraordinarily dry. He closed it and tried to swallow, but his throat was too tight. “Volpe,” he croaked out, and the thief’s smile stretched into a grin. “That’s not—that’s not possible.”

“This world is full of impossible things, and I daresay I am the least of them.” Without further ado the thief took a seat, letting his legs swing over the side of the building, and smiled down at the letter in his lap. A few moments passed before he frowned and looked up at Guido. “Aren’t you going to sit?”

There was nothing for it. Guido sat. He let his legs dangle as well, still staring at the man they called la Volpe, who—impossibly—looked like he was still very much middle-aged, though he should have been near—Christ, eighty? Ninety? He was twenty years Niccolò’s senior at least, from what little Guido had been able to tell, though his exact age had apparently been as much a mystery to his father as to Guido himself. It didn’t matter, though—the man sitting five feet from him was not wizened as he should have been.

“Ah, Venezia,” Volpe chuckled, and the expression on his face as he read the letter was so impossibly fond that it made Guido’s chest seize. “Happy days. He was even younger than you are now, if you can believe it.”

“How?” Guido said weakly, and Volpe glanced at him.

“How did I know him when he was younger? How did we find ourselves in Venezia?”

“How—” Guido shook his head, trying to clear it, but to no avail. “ _How_ are you…?”

“I’m well, thank you, all things considered.”

“No, I mean—how are you _here_?”

Volpe grinned. It was a sharp thing, wide and white, that showed his teeth. “Where else should I be?”

“This isn’t possible. You should be—ancient.”

“And I am. Just not in the way you were expecting.” Volpe’s smile softened a little, and he folded the letter and tucked it into his cloak. “Come now. I know you’ve been sniffing about for me. I’m sure you heard the stories.”

“Yes, but I—I figured they were just _stories_.”

“And they are. But that doesn’t mean they’re not true.”

Guido struggled to marshal his thoughts—to marshal even a single coherent thought. He had a thousand questions, all vying for his attention, and Volpe just sat and gazed out across the city, making no effort to engage him in conversation. “Why won’t you look at me?” Guido managed at last.

Volpe did glance at him, but it was the same as before, a barely-there passing over of his eyes before they fixed on the near horizon again. When the thief spoke, his voice was low and tight, somehow. “You really are his spitting image. It hurts a little to look at you.”

Guido’s throat squeezed shut. He sucked in a breath through his nose, fighting the urge to cry, but the tears blurred his vision anyway, and his willpower crumpled. “ _Look_ at me,” he demanded, and finally Volpe did—really, truly looked at him, and Guido saw all of his helpless, furious grief mirrored on the thief’s face. Something clicked into place in Guido’s chest, something heavy and aching, and it was a burden and a relief all at once, to _finally_ look at another and see someone who missed his father as much as he did. His sob caught in his throat, and something flashed across Volpe’s eyes. The thief closed the distance between them in one swift movement, wrapped an arm around Guido’s shoulders and pulled him in close, and Guido choked another sob against the thief’s cloak, took in the scent of it, road-dust and cinnamon.

“I’m sorry,” Volpe said softly, and Guido really did begin to cry then, like he was half his age, like he hadn’t been able to cry the day they buried his father. Volpe cradled a hand against his nape and squeezed. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Guido gasped out, unable to keep his voice from shaking, hating how weak he felt, how young and how small, but Volpe’s grip on him only tightened. “Why did you stay away for so long? Didn’t you want to know us?—Didn’t you _want_ us? Did you stop loving my father? Did you—”

“No, no—Christ, Guidiccio, no. I could never stop loving Niccolò. And of course I wanted you boys—of course, of course. You were mine from the moment you were born, mine as much as you were his.” Volpe chuckled, squeezed him tight. “How could I not want my treasure’s little treasures? I’d have put you into my pockets and carried you off if I could get away with it.”

“So _why_?”

Volpe sighed. It was a heavy thing, too heavy for one man to bear, and Guido had to press his eyes shut against the ache in his chest, in his throat, rattling his bones. “Niccolò had killed for the brotherhood by the time he was nineteen. He never wanted that life for you, for any of you. He had to do what he could to protect you from it.”

Guido drew back, catching his breath, and stared in wonder at Volpe’s sad, smiling face. “He left you.”

“Yes. He left me. I don’t blame him. We were torturing ourselves—together but not, a family but not. It was all stolen time, in the end. We only got as much as we did because I am such an excellent thief.”

“Was it my mother? Did she force him?”

“No,” Volpe said, gripping his arms. “No. Your mother understood—she didn’t like it, but she understood. It mustn’t have been easy for her, to have a husband who couldn’t give her his whole heart.”

“Was it after I was born?” Guido pressed, the questions tumbling from him in a rush now. “Is that why my father left you?—was it my fault?”

Volpe laughed. “How could it have been? You were a baby. No, it was because Bernardo was getting older. Any longer and he would remember me.”

“Would that have been so terrible? For us to have someone else in our lives who loved us? We lost everyone else, everyone—my grandparents were dead before I was even born, Aunt Margherita died, Uncle Totto, Ezio…”

Volpe’s eyes—yes, they were violet, those stories had been true—searched his face. “Your father and Ezio walked away from the brotherhood,” the thief said softly. “I did not. And would not. If I stayed, sooner or later, the order would have found its way to you children. That’s just the way of our world.”

Guido fought for some argument, as if finding the right words could alter the past, could give him a life wherein the ones who loved him didn’t leave him behind. Finally he hung his head. “I needed you,” he bit out. “When my father died. I needed someone to help me carry it all.”

“I know,” Volpe murmured, and ruffled a hand through Guido’s hair, straightening it where the wind had tossed it about. “I needed you, too. I never meant to leave you alone, Guidiccio. I was only trying to honor Niccolò’s wishes.”

Guido drew a few breaths. He felt a little steadier now, like he’d exorcised something with his tears, with that childish moment of uninhibited grief. The ache in his chest was not quite so fierce. “No one’s called me ‘Guidiccio’ since I was a child, by the way.”

Volpe shrugged, his smile faint. “Well, that was when I last saw you.”

“So why meet me now?”

“Ah.” Volpe was quiet for a moment, and he pressed his hand against the cloak where it held the precious letter. “I suppose I just…well. Flavia’s pregnant, isn’t she.”

Guido nodded. “Yes. Just three months along, now.”

And Volpe smiled at that, the first smile Guido had seen on his face that wasn’t bowed by grief at the corners. “How wonderful. Niccolò would be beside himself. A grandchild. He used to bray with laughter when I warned him he’d wind up with a large family. He pretended otherwise, your father, but he always wanted lots of children.” His smile turned a little bitter. “I’d have given your father the world on a golden platter if he asked for it, but I couldn’t give him a family.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, let the wind tousle his hood, and Guido watched him, the man his father had loved for the best and hardest years of his life. “Gilberto,” he said, cautiously, and Volpe looked at him with wide eyes, his expression stricken. Guido wondered how long it had been since anyone called the thief by his name. “When the baby’s born—will you come and see it?”

Gilberto stared at him a moment longer, and then a smile broke on his face, soft and warm. Gilberto smiled at him so much the way Niccolò had that Guido thought he might burst into tears all over again. “ _Tesoro_ ,” the master thief said, laughing, “just try and keep me away.”


End file.
